Mini Research Paper Do’s and Don’ts
1. DO use ITALICS for the title of the book, DON’T use “quotation marks” or underline for the title of the book or title of your paper.

2. DO use “quotation marks” for the title of articles or chapters in the book. Do capitalize chapters (ex- Chapter One)

3. DON’T cite the entire web address of your source within the context of your essay, for example http:////mscadwell.wikispaces.com///Oct+7+2014+Eng+12 . DO use the title of the website and/or article within the context of your essay. EX- One source that offers much insight to PTSD is the website Mayoclinic.org. DO capitalize the website name, see below from Purdue Owl Websit:
  • Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work being posted on the Internet, you may have to cite research you have completed in virtual environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's Evaluating Sources of Informationresource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source in your Works Cited.
Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers, but often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:
  • Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
  • You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
  • Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com orForbes.com as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

4. DO cite the web address at the end of sentence in which it was mentioned only if you didn’t include it in your writing!! (parenthesis): (mscadwell.wikispaces.com).

5. DO place punctuation outside of citations, DON’T place punctuation before your citation. EX- Found on Mscadwell.wikispaces.com are the directions for the mini research paper (**mscadwell.wikispaces.com**).

6. DO include the title of articles or blogs found on websites, not just the website name: In the article “The Children of Drug Wars” by Sonia Nazario on the website of The New York Times, Nazario claims….(NYTimes .com)

7. Introduction: DO introduce and briefly SUMMARIZE the book Girls Like Us AND introduce your research term. DON’T forget to summarize and introduce the book.

8. Par 2: DO summarize the section in which your research term appears in the book and DO use a quote from that section to introduce your research term. DON’T forget to give enough information so that there is enough context to understand your quote and the section in which it appears!

9. Par 3: DO use two, credible on line sources to present information about your term. DON’T use any dictionary websites.

10. Par 3: DO paraphrase and summarize information from your credible sources. Quotes are also okay, DO elaborate after presenting your research/evidence

11. Par 4: DO explain how the reader’s understanding of the section in which the research term appears and/or the story is enhanced/improved and explain how it has changed (elaborate). DON’T explain how the additional information might be useful to people in the book, such as family members of the characters.

12. DON’T use contractions in formal writing (like “don’t”), DO spell out contractions.

13. DO include a Works Cited in correct format (see easybib.com for help).

14. DO follow MLA format. There is a link on Mscadwell.wikispaces.com!